Tom Santos strolled into the small office above his hardware store, passed down from father to son for four generations. His children would be the fifth. He didn’t want to step down yet, but when the younger of his two boys took over the management, Tom had recognized the restlessness and stepped down.
He entered the cramped office without knocking and closed the door softly behind himself. A man of actions and words, Tom’s fifty-nine years sat comfortably around his wide shoulders, the laugh lines around his green eyes and mouth, the small paunch around his middle. He considered himself patient and reasonable, believed his children had inherited those qualities, and many more, from him, even if his youngest was lacking in the reasonable and sensible departments. That short-sightedness, T
